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FEATURED THREADS for 6-21-22

 
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Bud Brewster
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Joined: 14 Dec 2013
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Location: North Carolina

PostPosted: Tue Jun 21, 2022 3:02 pm    Post subject: FEATURED THREADS for 6-21-22 Reply with quote



If you're not a member of All Sci-Fi, registration is easy. Just use the registration password, which is —

gort



Attention members! If you've forgotten your password, just email me at brucecook1@yahoo.com.
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In the interest of providing the members of All Sci-Fi a balanced diet of Science Fiction, today's lunch entrée is a hefty helping of Martian invasion (served well done), with a sea-food side dish of fried giant octopus. Very Happy

Desert is an overly-sweet concoction from Disney, affectionately called Spaced Invaders. Rolling Eyes

Admittedly it does have a pretty cool "evil floating robot".





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The War of the Worlds (1953)

Here's a few more trivia items from IMDB in the blue text. Very Happy
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~ The Martian war machines were originally going to be walking tripods as they were depicted in H.G. Wells' novel, but George Pal didn't know how a tripod would walk and instead went with the flying machines.

Note from me: As much as I love stop motion, I doubt the audience would be as impressed with animated tripods as they were with the slow, ominous, floating Martian ships.

~ The Martian war machines had about twenty wires running to each one. Some were for suspension and maneuvering, while others carried power to the various lights and mechanisms. This was produced before there were lightweight circuits and sophisticated radio controls.

Note from me: Digitally removing wires from actors portraying weightlessness in spaceships has created some great scenes in recent years. Call me a heretic, but I'd love to see those damned annoying wires removed from the ships in this movie. Rolling Eyes

~ The sound effects of the Martian war machines' heat ray were created from three electric guitars played backward. The sound of the Martian screaming after Forrester hit it was a mixture of a microphone scraping along dry ice and a woman's scream played backward. The former set of sound effects became widely used stock sound effects after the film was released. They are still in use.

Note from me: By gum, now that I know how those sound effect were done, it's easy to imagine electric guitars and dry ice being the source of those sounds! Very Happy

~ The sound of the spaceships shutting down was made by vacuum cleaners being turned off.

Note from me: Hey, ditto for that sound effect! It DOES sound like a vacuum cleaner engine winding down!

~ George Pal originally wanted the audience to put on 3-D glasses when the actors put on goggles. The rest of the movie would have been in 3-D.

Note from me: "Ladies and gentlemen, please remember to put on your 3D glasses at the appropriate moment or you'll be blinded by the atomic blast in the movie. Thank you."

~ By way of acknowledging the part that Cecil B. DeMille had played in bringing the story to the screen, George Pal wanted him to narrate the film, but DeMille suggested Sir Cedric Hardwicke instead. Pal also paid tribute to DeMille in the film by having his film Samson and Delilah (1949) listed on the theater marquee early in the film.

Note from me: When I read this I remembered that DeMille provided narration for The Ten Commandments and sounded pretty good, but Mr. Hardwicke was indeed the right choice. Ironically, Hardwicke plays the old pharaoh in The Ten Commandments! Wink

~ Lee Marvin was offered the male lead.

Note from me: Marvin is a fine actor, but I think Mr. Barry was a better choice. I love him in Bat Masteron, and I recently bought the box set. Very Happy

~ Ann Robinson reprised the role of Sylvia Van Buren in the B-movie, The Naked Monster (2005).

Note from me: That is one very funny fan-made movie!
Ted Newsom created the movie as a project that took several years.

Ted was a member of the older version of All Sci-Fi, but he never posted much, and he finally told me he had no interest in the board. (Jeez, what an old grouch, eh? Rolling Eyes)

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It Came from Beneath the Sea (1955)

IMDB has several interesting trivia items for this movie. Here’s a few of the ones I found the most interesting, in the blue text. Very Happy
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~ Ray Harryhausen purchased the model for the ship that the octopus sinks from a five and dime store.

Note from me: Hey, that means that if somebody wanted to build a resin model of the octopus sinking the ship, he could get the toy model Ray used so that the build would be authentic!

~ The "atom-powered" submarine shown cruising on the surface is actually the diesel-electric submarine USS Cubera (SS-347).

Note from me: Ah, but that elaborate two-level sail on the sub is so much cooler than the simple rectangular ones on the atomic submarines.






~ City officials refused to allow the filmmakers to shoot on the real Golden Gate Bridge, because they didn't want the public to think that the bridge could actually fall. Ray Harryhausen recreated the entire bridge in miniature.

Note from me: Right, they didn't want people to avoid using the bridge for fear of a giant octopus attack. Rolling Eyes

~ The Special Jet Propelled Torpedo is actually an aerial torpedo (it was delivered by aircraft and by torpedo boats) that had its propellers and rudders removed.

Note from me: I think this little touch (a "jet propelled torpedo") shows that screenwriter George Worthing Yates either wanted to suggest something a bit more "sci-fi" than just a normal torpedo, or the only torpedo they could get for the scene was missing the propeller, so he turned the negative into a positive by say the torpedo was the deluxe "jet propelled" kind! Very Happy

~ Early in the film Kenneth Tobey walks right past a "No Smoking" sign whilst smoking a cigarette in the marine biology lab.

Note from me: Tobey was a macho guy with a distinctive way of holding his cigarettes. His hand never relaxed with two fingers forming a V with the cigarette in the middle. Instead, his fingers would curl almost into a fist, with the index finger curled around the cigarette. It was plume cool, guys. Cool

The picture below isn't the best example of what I described, but it shows the way Margaret Sheridan's more relaxed, feminine hand held her cigarette, compared to Tobey's slightly "clutched" hand.






This shot (and the cropped version below it) is a better example. Tobey's hand looks like it's holding a gun, with his index finger on the trigger! Cool



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~ Consider the title logically. The bottom of the sea is the seabed - stone and dirt. If something came from "beneath" the sea, it would have to originate below the seabed.

Note from me: This is proof that IMDB is not overly careful about their trivia items. I Googled "beneath and under definition" and got this.

Under is used when something is directly under another. Underneath is often used to say that something is covered by another thing. Beneath has the same meanings as under or underneath.

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Spaced Invaders (1990)



This movie should have been much funnier than it was, but if you don't let the promising opening raise you hopes to high, it fun!

The movie also includes an amazing "enforcer drone" that floats around, an articulated prop with a very impressive design.






The film starts off with some slam-bang special effects of a space fleet, accompanied by a clever variation of Gustav Holst The Planets (specifically the Mars piece). The rest of David E. Russo's score is quite good, too.

The first twenty minutes delivers some good laughs and interesting characters. The film takes place in a small mid-western farming town on Halloween, and the movies' premise is elevated by an early scene with the local radio DJ introducing a special treat for his listeners by airing a recording of the original War of the Worlds radio broadcast.

The aliens hear the broadcast from space and assume its a real broadcast about how the Earth is being invaded by the very space fleet the Martians have been trying to join up with.

We hear a few excerpts from the program on several radios around town from time to time.

IMDB's trivia items include this. "The call letters for the radio station playing the "War of the Worlds" program are W.E.L.Z. after Orson Welles, or H.G. Wells, or both."

Once the ship reaches Earth, the five real Martians start wandering around in search of "Earth scum" to annilialate. But since it's Halloween night, everybody assumes their just kids in costumes!

But right there is where this movie falls apart.

The five aliens (played by midgets in costumes with faces which are too immobile to be convincing) spend the entire movie delivering horribly written dialog in ridiculous voices, two of which are bad imitations of Jack Nicholson and Cary Grant. Rolling Eyes

The aliens extremely unfunny dialog practically ruins the movie . . .

However, there are enough good moments sprinkled throughout the movie to make it fun to watch. But don't take my word for it. Here's the trailer AND the full movie!


_____ Spaced Invaders (1990) ORIGINAL TRAILER


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__________________Spaced Invaders (1990)


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_________________
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)
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